Early Medieval Patterns Of Lordship

Aside from these discoveries of carved stonework, archaeological fieldwork has so far shed very little light of the early medieval era in North Tynedale and there is no contemporary documentation.

However the pattern of landholding and lordship in the upland valleys of Northumbria prior to the Norman Conquest may be glimpsed through a combination of the parochial framework and placename evidence. It is striking that the parochial centres of medieval North Tynedale and Redesdale all have toponyms incorporating personal names. Thus the parish of Simonburn ('Simondeburn' in 1228-9), which embraced most of North Tynedale, seems to incorporate a personal name, Sigemund (Mawer 1920, 180).

It is tempting to infer, tentatively, that these parishes may, in effect, have fossilised 9th/11th century estate boundaries, a phenomenon well-recognised elsewhere (cf. Winchester 1987, 22-7), whilst the placenames preserve some memory of early proprietors. Similarly Elsdon (Ellesden in the earliest sources) presumably signifies Elli's or perhaps Aelf's valley, whilst Corsenside (Crossensete) combines an Irish personal name, Crossan, with the Norse term for hill pasture saetr, and may hint at Irish-Norse settlement (Beckensall 1992; Mawer 1920, 55, 74).

That this form of place name can be associated with early landholdings is demonstrated by the case of Gilsland (Gilles' land), which derives from the territory of Gille son of Boet, who held the western end of the Tyne gap up until the reign of Henry II. Given the size of Simonburn parish, in particular, it is tempting to see it as the surviving trace of a ‘shire’, one of the large estates, of early medieval date, for which widespread evidence has been identified elsewhere in the county, e.g. Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bamburghshire in north Northumberland (cf. Dixon 1985, I, 69-75; Barrow 1973, 7-68; Jolliffe 1926). Much of the evidence for such an estate would have been lost as a result of it later being subsumed in the even larger liberty of Tynedale and its internal structures would have been disrupted by the process of subinfeudation.

A further possible clue to the early-medieval framework is provided by the dedication to St Cuthbert of the chapel at Bellingham. This belongs to a string of churches and chapels in the upland hinterland of Northumberland - Elsdon, Corsenside, Bellingham, Haydon Bridge, Beltingham - which are consecrated to St Cuthbert (cf. Bates 1889, 326-7).

Whilst some dedications to St Cuthbert can be related to the medieval holdings of the Prince-Bishops of Durham the same cannot be said of this upland series. It is possible the series in some way reflects early proselytising by Cuthbert himself (as suggested by Bates, ibid.), however a more attractive hypothesis may be advanced. The dedication sites can be linked to form a single itinerary leading from north Northumberland along the edge of the uplands and through the Tyne-Solway gap to Cumbria.

It is tempting to identify this with the route followed by the Community of St Cuthbert during the late-ninth century, when it fled from its first refuge at Norham to a temporary haven in Cumbria in the face of the Danish onslaught (cf. Higham 1986, 310 with regard to Cumbrian church dedications). Indeed, just such a tradition of extensive church and chapel foundation 'in the western districts', by the itinerant Community, is preserved by the 15th-century prior Wessington of Durham (cited by Bates 1889, 327 n.38).

The dedications may reflect a process of alliance building between the Community, anxious for military support, and the local secular elite, marked by the establishment of chapels on important estates and sanctified by the temporary presence there of Cuthbert's remains. It also falls within a broader pattern of similar activity, as the foundations of the English parochial structure were laid by the widespread creation of estate chapels from the ninth century onwards.